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Inflation in February was higher in almost all neighboring countries than in Hungary, according to recently published Eurostat data, reports Világgazdaság.
The Hungarian Central Statistical Office most recently reported a 3.7 percent increase in consumer prices, and the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) used in the EU was even better, which showed a 3.6 percent rise in February. In contrast, Eurostat measured inflation in the following surrounding countries: 4.8 percent in Croatia, 4.2 percent in Austria, 7.1 percent in Romania, 3.7 in Poland, and 3.8 percent in Slovakia.
Since December, Hungarian inflation has been in the middle of the regional average.
As Hungary Today previously reported, the pattern of inflation was significantly different from that in neighboring countries. While the 11.7 percent rate in June 2022, was the third lowest in the Central and Eastern European region, the Baltic countries had inflation rates above 20 percent, and Poland and the Czech Republic were four and six percentage points higher than Hungary. Hungarian inflation gained momentum in the summer of 2022, resulting in the highest inflation rate in the EU in September (26%) and for almost a year.
The good news from the perspective of the European Central Bank’s expected interest rate cuts is that
the euro zone’s annual inflation rate was 2.6 percent in February, down from 2.8 percent in January, while annual inflation in the European Union also fell from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent.
The lowest inflation rates were recorded in Latvia, Denmark (both 0.6 percent), and Italy (0.8 percent). The highest annual increases were recorded in Romania (7.1 percent), Croatia (4.8 percent), and Estonia (4.4 percent).
Compared with January, annual inflation fell in twenty Member States, remained stable in five, and rose in two. The largest contributors to annual inflation in the euro zone were services (+1.73 percentage points), followed by food, alcohol and tobacco (+0.79), non-energy industrial goods (+0.42), and energy (-0.36).
Via Világgazdaság, Featured image: Pexels